tegic government buildings. The crisis reached
fever pitch on 28 and 29 May. De Gaulle’s rela-
tionship with Resurrection is one of the most
hotly argued controversies among historians. Had
the general himself given the order to set the coup
in motion or was it Gaullist supporters in Paris
who gave the green light to the army generals in
Algiers? What seems likely is that de Gaulle had
expressed himself in an ambiguous way, yet
had given clear indication that if he failed to gain
power by legal process, which he preferred, he
would have taken advantage of the Algiers plot.
The airlift actually began when six Dakotas
took off early in the afternoon of 28 May. That
evening in Paris President Coty called in de
Gaulle and invited him to form a ‘government of
national safety’ since France was on the verge of
civil war. Coty also had to accept de Gaulle’s
demand that he would take over only if he could
prepare plans for a new constitution; meanwhile
he would govern without the National Assembly.
De Gaulle then agreed that he would be granted
special powers for only six months and would first
need to appear before the National Assembly for
confirmation as head of government and to
receive authority to plan and submit a new con-
stitution. When they received this news, the gen-
erals postponed Resurrection. The National
Assembly on 1 June 1958 by a majority voted its
approval of de Gaulle as head of government with
special powers, but a sizeable minority voted
against him, 224 members out of 553. The fol-
lowing day he received the necessary three-fifths
majority for submitting a new constitution to the
French people by referendum. So de Gaulle, at
the age of sixty-seven, had become head of the
government again, but Coty remained president,
an arrangement that conferred legality and con-
tinuity on the interim period that marked the
last months of the Fourth Republic.
De Gaulle had achieved a constitutional trans-
fer of power just this side of legality – but he
could not have done it without the military threat
from Algeria. His immediate problem was now
not metropolitan France but Algeria, where set-
tlers and generals, together with French Gaullist
politicians back home, would look upon any
retreat from ‘l’Algérie Française’ as rank treach-
ery, which would absolve them from owing
loyalty to any government guilty of it. But what
did de Gaulle really think?
It is a question not easy to answer. In letters
and private conversations he seems to have tried
out ideas, using those he addressed as a sounding
board. But he was clearly pragmatic. The conflict
would be brought to an end and de Gaulle did
not believe that could be achieved by continuing
to discriminate against the Muslim majority or by
employing military force and the torture of oppo-
nents. He relied on his own immense prestige
among the settlers and the millions of Algerian
Muslims, to whom he proposed a new deal. To
the fighting men of the FLN he offered an olive
branch by praising their courage. He was under
no illusions that one day Algeria would be inde-
pendent, but that independence would be best
achieved gradually and in harmony and in some
form of association with France.
For all his rhetoric and grandeur, de Gaulle
was far from sure of his ability to impose a policy
opposed to the wishes of the French settlers and
the army generals, who were congratulating
themselves on their destruction of the Fourth
Republic. Nor did the killings in Algeria cease
with de Gaulle’s return. Indeed, the savagery was
worse than ever during the next four years, while
the general seemed to procrastinate, switching
from concessionary overtures to the FLN to
renewed efforts to achieve ‘pacification’, and the
toll of death, maiming and torture mounted. If
de Gaulle really represented, as he claimed, the
greatness of France, is he not to be condemned
for vainly attempting to save France’s position in
Algeria? The ambiguity of his policies was to be
revealed on his first visit to Algeria, only three
days after his investiture. To Algerian Muslims
and the French settler crowds, he proclaimed on
different occasions the delphic utterance, ‘I have
understood you’; however, in all but one of his
speeches he carefully avoided uttering the pieds
noirs’ slogan, ‘l’Algérie Française’.
De Gaulle’s impact on the population in
France and in Algeria was enormous. The great
majority of French citizens and of Muslim
Algerians were prepared to place their trust in him
and to be led to new relations and a better future.
1
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